Come Undone
by noa08
Summary: An angsty little ficlet written for heartisbruised over at the LJ Jate Ficathon. Jate. PG. Oneshot.


**AN:** So I'm posting something just to prove that I am not dead. I did move to China! I'm currently having a ton of trouble getting my employers to give me full 24/7 access to the net at my apartment. (Right now I'm limited to access only at the school and only if someone is there to let me into the office. Bah!) At first the computer at the apartment was completely broken, but now it's just the net. Oh the joys of living overseas! At least it's given me a ton of time to do nothing! Oh, and write. :-) This one is for the Jate Ficathon over at LJ. It was written for heartisbruised and I am so sorry it is so late (26 days to be exact! I am so bad!) I also incorporated a theme from the LJ comm 40mixed. So I hope you enjoy it, and look for more updates on my other stories soon.

http/community. # 21 - Rejection

Written for _heartisbruised_: I'm a bad Jater. I hope it's what you wanted and that you'll forgive me for being so late:-)

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**Come Undone**

"I can't do this."

The words left Kate's mouth before she could think and Jack stopped wrapping her hand in gauze to look up at her.

"You know that you don't have to clean the cut yourself. One of the benefits of having a doctor for a boyfriend," he winked at her, a flirtatious smile playing at the corner of his lips. "I can clean all of your wounds."

Kate winced and bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. The knife wound from cleaning fish was deep and needed three butterfly bandages and five stitches. It was painful, but nothing compared to what she was about to do to Jack.

"Not this." she glanced to her hand and her eyes focused on a patch of gauze stained red where blood had already started to soak through. Her breathing had started to come in short breaths and she forced herself to speak before she froze up. "Us, Jack. I can't . . . do us."

This time, when he stopped wrapping her hand, he didn't look up. After a moment of nothing, Kate silently prayed that he would say something, anything, to reassure her that she didn't just break him.

"Jack," his name came out as a whisper.

Thunder cracked over head, garnering their attention and they looked up at the darkening sky. Jack cleared his throat and went back to work. He wrapped the gauze roughly around Kate's hand, securing it haphazardly with a pin. When he let her hand drop suddenly, she knew she had ruined any chance she had of making this easy.

"Jack," she said his name again, this time louder. He shot a glare over his shoulder as he turned to pack away his first aid kit. "Can't we talk about this?" Kate felt herself pout, her bottom lip sticking out in such a childish way that she felt like an idiot trying to plead with him. She was so close to tears. She could feel them burning in her throat, at her eyes, threatening to spill over onto her cheeks.

Jack shook his head. He was so angry. Kate watched him stare down the medical tape as he wrapped it in plastic. "You talked. You can't do this," he threw the tape into his backpack and zipped the bag up with a hard tug. "It's not like I have a say, right?" His voice was harsh as he threw the backpack on and turned to head back down the beach. Kate put her good hand out, grabbing him by the elbow.

"Jack, wait! That's not talking. I want to tell you why. Please?" She finally managed to spin him towards her again and she pulled back a step to put distance between them. She didn't think she could tell him why they would never work when he was standing so close to her.

Pushing a curl behind her ear, Kate tried to look Jack in the eyes, but he refused to look back. Instead, she steadied her gaze on the horizon behind him, took a deep breath and counted to five.

"I know we've only been at this a week, which isn't long, but I think . . . no, listen!" She held up a hand to stop him from walking away again. He snorted and threw his backpack in the sand. Crossing his arms, he threw her another glare, but this time, their eyes locked and Kate felt a chill run through her.

She was doing this for his own good, she reminded herself. It was time to stop being so damn selfish. When the sky finally opened up on them, and rain poured down, neither one seemed to notice.

"Look . . . I'm not good for you." Kate bit her lip. She had been hoping to lead up to this, but once again, the words spilled out on their own accord. She was hopeless.

Jack's face twisted in confusion. "What?" he shook a finger at Kate as if he was scolding her. "That is such bullshit, and you know it! What else has Sawyer been telling you? That you're only good enough for _him_? You know the reason why he's feeding you that crap, Kate." He shook his head in disbelief. That sonofabitch was insufferable. Even now, when Jack was with Kate, he was still trying to keep them apart.

"This has nothing to do with him," Kate told him in a threatening tone. Everything was Sawyer's fault with Jack. His eyes were already scanning the beach, his fists clenched at his sides, ready to attack at the first sign of the other man. Kate raised her voice to be heard over the din of the growing storm. "This is between you and me. Listen to what I'm trying to say to you!" she sidestepped into his view again, bringing his attention, his anger back down to her.

Jack pressed his lips together, and Kate could tell he was biting back words he knew were best left unspoken. She took a breath to steady herself, her voice. "When you said we could just forget, that everyone could start a new life on this island . . . " She shook her head slowly. "I can't do that."

Jack shifted on his feet and Kate took it as a sign that he was truly listening this time. The rain started to come down now, worse than before. Each cold bead of water hit both of them with a sting, as if it were desperately trying to deflect their aggression from one another. In a civilized conversation, they would have ducked into a tent to discuss their relationship. But this was neither civilized nor a conversation. This was Kate talking and she couldn't wait to find shelter. She needed to say this now.

"I can't ever forget what I've done. What kind of person I am." Jack's face fell at her words and Kate briefly wondered if he did in fact, forget. The thought made her feel sick. "You might not want to know who I am, but it will always be there for me, in the back of _my_ mind."

Jack brought a hand up to wipe torrents of water from his line of vision, but continued to hold it there, as if doing so would help him understand what she was trying to say. "It's been a week, Kate..."

"Yes, I know," she cut him off, her voice seeming small against the roar of the rain and the turbulence of the surf. "But, I feel like it's been this way since I met you, since the crash. I'm constantly at war with myself. I want to tell you everything," She smiled sadly at the idea. "But I know you won't listen, you're not ready. So I hold back. And I'm tired, Jack. I'm tired of holding back with you."

I mean, I've tried and now I know that I can't be this perfect person that you want me to be," Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Kate held up a hand to stop him. "No," she shook her head. "No, as much as you don't want to admit it, you _do _want me to be someone else." She watched as Jack shook his head and looked away, out into the storm hovering over the ocean. She went on, not wanting to lose her momentum. "Jack, look at me. This person that you think you know- that you think you love- or like..." She stopped herself short, stumbling over the words. Jack dragged his eyes back to meet hers once more, both searching for some semblance of truth to the word she used, accidentally or not.

Kate bit her lip. "She's fake. You don't know who I am." She reminded him. "The real me? The real Kate? Is someone who lies, and _kills_, and screws up everything and everyone around her," her voice broke and fresh tears were blessedly masked by the relentless dusk and rivulets of rain coursing down her face, but she was somehow sure that Jack knew she was crying. He could hear it in her voice, and no matter how strong she was trying to be, how she tried to hide it, he just knew.

With a childlike grace, Kate dug her bare toe deep into the wet sand, before looking up at Jack through a curtain of curls. "I don't want to screw you up, Jack."

She couldn't completely see his face now, the sun was setting and storm clouds blocked the light, she lost the sight of him in twilight. She tried to imagine him being strong against her words, to have them take no effect on him, but she also knew Jack too well. She was crushing him.

Kate reached out and tugged Jack by the elbow, moving him closer to her. She didn't want to raise her voice against the rain to say what she was going to say next. Jack stumbled forward easily, and had to stop himself before he did what he wanted to do and pull her into a kiss. Try and salvage what little he now realized they had left.

"Let's be honest," Kate whispered to him, playing with the buttons on his shirt for a small distraction.

"Oh now we're being honest?" She heard him mumble. Whether he intended her to hear it or not, she didn't know, but she chose to ignore it.

"The two of us? We're too different. You keep trying to be my equal and," Kate paused with a solemn sigh. "You can never be that, Jack. You're so much more. You need someone who is so much more."

Jack lifted his hands and looked around at the empty beach surrounding them. Off in the distance, the rest of the survivors struggled to keep their tents and belongings dry in the downpour. Kate followed his gaze back to camp, trying not to notice that they were standing so close now. If Jack leaned in slightly, he could be kissing her and they could just...

"And if we never get off of this island?" His voice was soft, and suddenly, it was the only sound Kate could hear. Everything else melted away. "What if you're the only person I ever wa- _need _in this life?" Jack corrected himself. He knew it was the truth and they were trying to be honest.

Kate raked her teeth over her upper lip, something he knew she only did when she was upset. "Don't say that. Please, don't say that." She begged him in a near-whisper, her eyes finding his in the blue of the oncoming night and he gave up. She had made her point.

Jack sighed. "Then . . . I just won't say anything." He took a step back and it was Kate's turn to cast her eyes out to the ocean, to the sand under her feet, to anything but Jack picking up his backpack and walking away.

A few hours later, when the rain had stopped and the beach had dried itself out, campfires were relit and people went to their tents to get some sleep, Jack found himself by the signal fire, settling in for the evening. Without her for the first night in almost a month.

Footsteps crunched through cemented sand and Jack looked up to Kate standing against a backdrop of stars, the reflection of the fire dancing in her eyes. She looked tired.

"I can't do this,"

Jack winced at her words, but glanced to where Kate was clutching her wounded hand against her chest. The gauze wrapping had come undone and was slowly unraveling itself as she held out the hand now for him to see.

"It came loose," she explained, her voice flimsy at first, but getting stronger with each syllable. "And I tried to fix it, but I just made it worse." Jack watched her shrug in the shadows as she made her way closer to him, waiting for an invitation to sit down.

He angled himself where he sat and motioned for her to sit next to him in the sand. Lifting her hand up to the firelight to get a better look, Jack started to re-wrap the bandage. His hands worked slowly over her smaller hand, and he watched as her breathing hitched in her chest when he traced a line up and around her wrist, pinning the fabric gently into place. Kate's good hand found Jack's in thanks and she smiled, if not a bit sadly.

They sat there by the fire for a long moment, Jack's fingers locking with hers and he chuckled.

"You know I miss you already, right?" He looked sidelong at her, and watched as she slowly nodded her head. Letting his thumb trace a pattern into the palm of her hand, he asked so quietly, Kate had to strain to hear him over the crackle of the fire. "Can't we just have one more week?"

She turned her head to look at him, meeting his gaze. Jack knew she wouldn't say yes, but she wouldn't say no either. And somehow, that was enough for him, for right now.

**AN2:**

Three things she wanted in the story: A fight (not necessarily physical), a confession & rain.

Three things she didn't want in the story: Other people, violence or fluffiness. A sorta happy ending is okay, just not too happy, and not without a struggle. Everything's better and more worth it after a struggle.


End file.
